Mexico

The newly installed governor of beleaguered Guerrero state has been in office just one day, and already he's under fire. A prominent citizens group accuses him of having links to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Patience is wearing thin among activists seeking the return of 43 Mexican students that went missing last month. Some accuse the government of trying to buy time, and fear a return of guerrilla violence in Guerrero.

Those who monitor Mexico's human rights commission say it often focuses on social ills – like school bullying or racial discrimination – rather than high-profile cases of elected officials abusing power or abuses that put the military in a bad light.

The Raul Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School is one of 16 teacher-training schools that came out of Mexico's revolution nearly a century ago. In more recent years the schools have become bastions of leftist politics.

If the newly discovered burial site holds the remains of the 43 students missing after a confrontation with police last weekend, this would be the nation's worst known massacre since President Peña Nieto took office.

Hector Beltran Leyva was more adept and more connected than most pursuing him imagined. He reconstituted his family's criminal group, working his business and political contacts and operating in some of the least violent places behind his inconspicuous cover.

The Obama administration is initiating a program to create in-country processing centers for US refugee status in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador for minors who qualify. It is an attempt to help stem the flow of young migrants making the risky journey north alone.

A Central American plan presented to the US and Mexico on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly aims to boost their economies and cut down on illegal immigration to the US through new airports in Nicaragua and Belize and regional energy expansion.

One journalist said he was forced against his will into the meeting with the kingpin. It’s an argument that a parade of political figures have also made after videos of their meetings were made public.

Previously, only labs that processed coca into cocaine had been found in Mexico - not plantations. The seizure of 1,639 coca plants raises concerns that it could be a test of the viability of reducing dependence on South American suppliers.

Mexico is both home to one of the richest men in the world and one of the lowest minimum wages in Latin America. Mexico City's mayor is pushing for an increase, but some worry it will have detrimental effects on the national economy.

Estimates of the number of disappeared people in Mexico during a decade of drug and gang violence rival numbers from Argentina's Dirty War and Colombia's armed conflict. New laws protecting victim's rights require the government to establish a national registry of those who have disappeared.

At least 60,000 people were killed in Mexico between 2006 and 2012 and tens of thousands more disappeared. But the burden of proof is on the family of the missing, who are stuck battling an unprepared and often intransigent bureaucracy as they try to find answers.

President Peña Nieto signed new rules opening state-run oil, gas, and electricity industries to private and foreign companies, saying average Mexicans would gain lower prices and more jobs. Mexico nationalized its oil industry in 1938.

An unusual program in Mexico allows painters, sculptors, and other artists to donate part of their annual production of artwork to the state in lieu of paying taxes. In return, Mexico gains a huge collection of contemporary art.